Paper
Saturday, July 24, 2004
This presentation is part of : The Nurse Manager
Identifying Supportive Role Behaviours of Managers in Long-Term Care Settings
Linda Mc Gillis Hall, RN, PhD, Faculty of Nursing, University of Torontos, Toronto, ON, Canada, Kathy Mc Gilton, PhD, Research, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada, and Janet Krejci, PhD, College of Nursing, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA.
Learning Objective #1: Develop an understanding of registered nurses', registered practical nurses', and health care aides' perceptions of the manager's role in long-term care settings
Learning Objective #2: Beecome familiar with registered nurses, registered practical nurses, and health care aides perceptions of the supportive role behaviours needed for managers to work effectively in long term care settings
Objective: Lack of knowledge about effective management strategies for improving nursing home quality of care is identified as one of the highest priority areas for long-term care in Canada. Current management practices of nurse managers and registered nurses in these facilities are not effective in assisting the staff whom they supervise. This study was undertaken to improve management practices in long-term care facilities enhancing the quality of the supervisory relationships between supervisors (nurse managers and registered nurses) and careproviders (health care aides and registered practical nurses). The objective of this study was to identify factors that influence the supervisors’ ability to establish supportive relationships with careproviders, and then to identify links between the establishment of these relationships and nursing and organizational outcomes.

Methods/ Sampling/Setting: The study was conducted in 12 facilities, 6 ‘for-profit’ and 6 ‘not-for-profit’. Phase 1 involved 12 focus groups with the purpose of generating a rich description of factors that influence supervisors’ ability to be supportive in their work places from the supervisors and careproviders’ perspective. Phase 2 will involve testing and possible revision of a set of supportive supervisory scales. Phase 3 will involve testing of relationships between supportive supervisors and nursing staffs’ job satisfaction, stress, absenteeism and turnover.

Findings/Conclusions: This presentation will focus on phase one results only. Results of the focus groups with both registered nurses, registered practical nurses and health care aides identified the need for managers to demonstrate more supportive behaviours, specifically related to employee trust and consideration. Valuing of team members was noted as a concern. Mechanisms for working through issues, enhancing communication and role articulation were also identified.

Implications: The study results provide information on the importance of manager behaviours in improving the quality of nursing home care. The implications of these findings will be discussed.

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Sigma Theta Tau International
July 22-24, 2004